Track These 3 Metrics Now to Improve Your Content

Looking at content metrics isn’t always fun.

I won’t lie. Sometimes I dread looking at the analytics for my website, social media, and podcast. It’s like when I weigh after an indulgent weekend full of homemade apple pie and nachos. I suddenly regret every extra calorie and am filled with a desire to turn back time.

Still. Sometimes, especially after dutifully going about the boring business of regular posting and caretaking for my website or social media accounts, I see numbers I don’t hate.

But no matter my first reaction – good or bad – within those numbers come questions.

What makes some interviews more popular than others? Is it the topic? The content itself? The promotion of the content? The guest or organization involved? The magical alchemy of natural word optimization, content type, and length for SEO?

The truth is, even after all these years of studying marketing, I can’t always pinpoint why a post seems to take off.

It’s maddening.

In those cases, I can guess. They can be educated guesses, but remain mysteries to me.

“What have you been seeing?”

One question I regularly receive from people relates to the themes and trends I’m exposed to in the Association Chat community. Whenever folks are trying to put their finger on what people in Association-land are talking about, they like to turn to me and say, “Well, what have you been seeing on Association Chat?”

And I can look at some of the popular topics posted, the member-generated content that has received the most comments, and my own content metrics to get an idea of what people are drawn to at any given period of time.

Oddly, I’ve noticed the most popular live interviews can sometimes have very few views for replays later while some interviews that have hardly anyone watching live will garner thousands of views later. It can seem like a crapshoot at times.

What captures the eye of the Association Chat audience?

Here are the most popular videos watched on the Association Chat YouTube channel in August:

In developing a strategic social media plan, you usually start with creating a channel plan, evaluating which channels make the most sense for your audience and goals. But when you make that plan, you also identify the metrics by which you will gauge your success in meeting those goals. And, I hate to admit this, but I often want to just ignore that whole part of things when it comes to my own content marketing. Mostly because I don’t want to acknowledge that some of my own content, creative efforts that I have poured time and energy into, just didn’t make the cut.

Sometimes, though, you need to take some time and peer into the abyss that is your marketing metrics.

How much traffic did that article bring in and why? Which podcast episode captured the most views? Which Facebook live stream? What was phenomenal and what was depressingly awful? And once you’ve recognized it, what are you going to do about it?

These aren’t just empty words. I really do think we have a massive problem with following through on the assessment piece of our own marketing efforts. Or, at least, I know I do.

People always seem to reference management guru Peter Drucker and his “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” quote when the subject of metrics come up in the association industry. I can understand why. I’ve seen what not measuring can do…and that’s a whole lot of nothing.

Thanks to Ginna Shernoville for sharing their work on Unsplash.

It kind of goes back to my example of enjoying an indulgent weekend of nachos followed by a hesitance to jump on the scale. The times when I have passed by the scale and decided to just “weigh in a few days when I’m back on track” have sometimes turned into more poor judgment on food choices and further procrastination so that by the time I weigh, the damage is worse than it would have been if I’d just faced facts immediately.

You want to measure it, baby! Measure those podcast downloads! Measure those live stream views! Measure those traffic numbers! Because if you look at them and ask the questions, assess, and reflect on what insights you can glean from them, your results will be so much better for it.

I can always tell when I’ve slacked off a bit on reviewing the stats because I get a little lazier about posting and I begin to have a fuzzier general sense of the pulse of my audience.

As we venture into the last part of August, I am recommitting to keeping a regular eye on measuring my own content and I would encourage you to do the same. Here are some good KPIs to track if you aren’t really looking to do a thorough deep dive, but simply want to glean some of the essential metrics that will help you make better decisions when you cultivate and curate your articles, posts, and podcasts.

Track These 3 Metrics Now to Improve Your Content

  1. Create call to actions that will help you track conversions.
  2. Track scroll depth to get a better view of engagement.
  3. Measure comments and backlinks. This is for sure an indicator that people are enjoying what you are producing.

These aren’t the only metrics to measure or even the most important numbers to track to impress people. But these are metrics that matter if you want to know that your content is hitting the mark with your audience.

If you liked this article, make sure to sign up for my Creative Content Explorer’s Workshop coming up in September!

(Like how I worked in my CTA there?)

Good luck! I wish you good luck with your content, success with your metrics, plates of weekend nachos, and the courage to face the scale on the following Monday!

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